vulture stew

Recent Acquisitions

2010-09-30T03:13:00.001-07:00

Fashion Forward

2010-07-15T13:12:00.000-07:00

Rudi Gernreich's forgotten masterpiece -- topless yarn clown pants. Just in time for a heat wave! Svelte and sweltering.

Savagely Primitive

2009-08-29T13:05:00.000-07:00

So many insane sexytime girlfriends, so few lifetimes. A guy almost has to reincarnate.

Ectoplasmic Female

2009-08-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

I say let her have the hat.

First TV Crush

2009-08-23T16:23:00.001-07:00

I suppose every pre-adolescent boy in the 60s was in danger of developing a crush on a beautiful woman he sees regularly on TV. This was mine.

From "The Addams Family Card Game."

Zhong Guoming Caipuke!

2009-08-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

I have no clue why such a thing exists. I just like it to pieces.

Bottoms Up!

2009-08-22T10:21:00.001-07:00

A drive past this address might be edifying. What's there now?

Gambling and Cheap Booze

2009-08-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

An unbeatable combination!

Unauthorized Nightie

2009-07-26T07:02:00.000-07:00

Just another typical Saturday night, chasing a sexy, wide-hipped brunette up and down the corridors of Harold's Purple Crayon Hotel.

Plus, It's Infra-Red!

2009-07-25T06:28:00.000-07:00

The Nick and Nora of mid-twentieth century kitchen gadgetry. 1953.

Who Indeed?

2009-07-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Blab-N-Slap

2009-07-06T05:51:00.001-07:00

Everybody loves stickers. Mucilage'd back. One would imagine this would come from the 1950s or '60s. Found in a drawer while preparing to move.

Cute? Sexy? Demented?

Win, Lose or Draw

2009-07-01T04:30:00.001-07:00

The box opens like a little book, and includes a charming bit of doggerel, quite as racy as the brunette and her imminent spillage.

I like a game where stakes are high
And I can take the other guy
For all he's worth (within the law)
And play it straight - Win, Lose or Draw!

From a church thrift store.

Winning Aces

2009-07-01T04:24:00.001-07:00

This deck features two poems. The Burgundy Lady's poem:

In that crucial situation
When you've wagered all you own,
Let the others have their horseshoes,
I'll take a WISHING BONE!

The Green Lady, on the other hand, offers this sentiment:

Comes the big pot of the evening
And your bankroll's pretty flat,
Who can blame a gal for raising
When she's holding ACES PAT?

Whatever it is the Bowman Products Co. is selling, I'll take a case of it.

Hit the Deck

2009-07-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

I was going to deal out a hand of Solitaire but the rotary phone rang.

Computers Are the Future

2009-06-10T05:22:00.000-07:00

A bit off-topic but such fabulous ephemera. Higbee's is long gone, of course, as are most mid-century department stores. Computers, on the other hand, still look pretty much like this.

Shocker

2009-06-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

That this was actually found in a thrift store is enough of a surprise, but that it's an actual 1935 imprint, not a 1940s or 1950s reprint, is even more surprising.

Scene of Weird Death

2009-05-06T15:05:00.001-07:00

Stylish and disturbing. Red dress, green chaise, lavender hair, death pallor.

These Dell mysteries created a whole world for the reader. Trouble visualizing the scene of the crime? No matter, just flip the book over! Trouble comprehending what this mystery is about? Dell is on that too.

And in case you couldn't remember from page to page who was who....

1947.

Good Morning, Starshine

2009-05-05T04:55:00.001-07:00

Dr. Grecian Formula offers our heroine a nutritious vodka screwdriver upon bringing her out of a century's worth of suspended animation, with the hope that he can convince her she really doesn't need that thin red coverlet, now that it's 2054 and buxom redheads are no longer required to put up with annoying clothes.

Frisky Ingenues

2009-05-05T04:35:00.000-07:00

From a more interesting time when frisky ingenues cavorting in states of undress was not seen as an affront to the sensibilities of most Americans, except for some Methodists in the South who were just plain horrified, though not before devouring every word.

Note the metamorphosis of Thorne Smith, best known for Topper, into Norman Matson. Smith died of a heart attack in 1934 at the age of 42, but the franchise was too lucrative to let it drop, and after Matson completed the fragments of The Passionate Witch, he continued with its sequel, Bats in the Belfry.

The Passionate Witch was movie-fied into I Married a Witch, with Fredric March and Veronica Lake. Twenty years later, the theme was exhumed for Bewitched. Always something to learn from racy paperbacks with nudie cuties on the cover.

Dames with Gats

2009-05-02T05:03:00.001-07:00

Remind me again, a half-naked babe with a loaded handgun is supposed to make a guy want to hop in the sack how?

Love the bullet belt. How manly is that?

Ace Doubles

2009-05-02T04:54:00.000-07:00

They're becoming scarce, at least in the thrift stores and yard sales. You can get them from collectors or vintage stores, but that's cheating.

Protection

2009-05-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

"Shall I display my ability?"

Oh my goodness yes, please.

A Year Passes Like Nothing

2009-05-01T05:33:00.000-07:00

By all that's holy, why isn't life really like this?!

What Day Is It?

2009-05-01T05:29:00.000-07:00

Crankshaft exchange!

The set of 10 purchased for pocket change at a posthumous estate sale more than fifteen years ago.

Pathway to Cleavage

2009-04-30T15:07:00.000-07:00

"Stanley Brack had a one-track mind... his particular goal was building better guided missiles.... fantastic machines for destruction and counter-destruction...."

A gorgeous, bosomy brunette hanging on his arm, and all he can think about is how better to obliterate whole populations of innocent civilians thousands of miles away. Stan's manly, firm-jawed focus on his long, gleaming shaft as it blasts off is all the proof you need that the dorks running the arms race are, shall we say, overcompensating here!

Science Fact

2009-04-30T04:13:00.001-07:00

As best they could imagine it in the early 1950s, before My Favorite Martian established once and for all the truth about the solar system.

Those hands are making me uncomfortable. "I just crawled in here looking for a warm place to sleep and now I'm on Mars?"

Pretty soon we'll be sending up rockets, so watch out.

The Lust Variations

2009-04-29T05:49:00.000-07:00

Sadly, it's all downhill from the cover. One is hard pressed to find sexytime prose in these poorly written, censor-phobic PG-13 productions from the early 1960s. "Starway to Lust" makes not a whit of sense, though the title page attempts to clarify things by proclaiming "Stairway to Lust." The imprint on the spine casts its vote for "Starway," so who knows. On the other hand, "hot bodied volupto-starlets!"

Page 129: "He opened the door and stepped into the room. She was sitting before a dressing table with a hairbrush in her raised hand and she wore a heavy quilted robe and fluffy slippers. She looked at his reflection in her mirror and smiled."

Not bad if you happen to be a quilted robe and fluffy slippers fetishist.

Advanced Degree in Nympho Nursing

2009-04-29T05:37:00.000-07:00

Now this is something that happens all the time, I'm quite certain. The first thing on my mind whenever I'm in the hospital recovering from surgery or a major illness is whether or not a hot nurse will want to jump my bones.

How Old Cary Grant?

2009-04-28T05:02:00.000-07:00

Old Cary Grant fine. How you?

Well, it looks like Cary Grant. Anyway, could William Powell really hoist a sodden blond over his shoulder and carry her upstairs? Nah.

Instant Women!

2009-04-28T04:51:00.000-07:00

A fine and rare combination of our preferred themes.

Coquettes Through the Ages

2009-04-28T04:31:00.000-07:00

This makes perfect sense. Why wouldn't a lady keep a revolver nearby while she's taking a shower? Lather, rinse, lock and load, repeat. 1947.

A nice stylization of the theme. 1954.

It's 1959, and someone at Pocket Books decided to drop the shower curtain-firearms theme for this dame in a magician's cape and skin-tight, off-the-shoulders unitard. Bad call. The big .44 revolver has been downsized to a tiny Luger-style derringer, which might stop the neighbor's poodle, but not much else.

I'm guessing the hat and cane on the chair means her boyfriend is Sebastian Cabot?

A return to the theme, thankfully. Now she's Barbara Feldon in a beehive. Glad to see she wised up and decided to go with the big-calibre revolver again. 1964.

Hyphenated

2009-04-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

When it says "a thrilling mystery novel," I for one certainly believe it. How could I not, when the cover is delightful beyond words? This edition, 1944.

Just in case there was any question, it's an Atlas Mystery.

Watergate Much?

2009-04-17T14:44:00.001-07:00

Yep, that's him. With some sort of hair thingie pasted on.

"Fifi, ripe Russian tramp who knew her way around Shanghai...." No wonder Nixon liked him.

Nice Gurls

2009-04-17T05:05:00.001-07:00

Wow Indeed

2009-04-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

As a kid growing up in the swinging sixties, I assumed life would be pretty much just like this. Imagine my surprise.

Choice

2009-04-15T05:41:00.000-07:00

Ninth printing, 1949.

Career Opportunities

2009-04-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

Are you sure you want to work in radio?

Spring Cleaning

2009-04-15T05:32:00.000-07:00

All kinds of things are turning up.

Skipper!

2009-04-14T05:16:00.000-07:00

I always preferred Ginger to Mary Ann.

Metal Marauders, Utopian Planet

2009-04-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

These cover illustrations are tops with me. They seem to have been done by someone signing themselves "Yaughan."

"Turn this book over for a second complete novel." From a better time, when the Ace Double ruled the rotating wire rack down at the drug store.

Planet of Wantons

2009-04-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Maybe I should reconsider my decision not to work in the space program.

No amateur models were harmed in the production of this book. Despite the lack of an author's name on the cover, the title page indicates that this 1962 gem was written by Olin Ross, which was a pseudonym for Alan Smithee.

There are also some imaginative sci-fi illustrations, like this one on page 19.

The Big One

2009-04-13T20:04:00.000-07:00

"Who would build a great civilization upon a huge crack in the world's surface? The Californians did...." From the back cover.

Inside, the preface page is stamped "J. L. CAHOGA BARGAIN BOOK. YOU SAVE WHEN YOU SHOP AT J.L.'s!!"

Dean R. Koontz

2009-04-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

Since 1969 at least, one of our leading opportunistic hacks. His tendentious Author's Foreword is worth quoting at length:

If there was a single phrase that captured the public's attention more than any other in 1967, it was this one: "The Medium Is the Massage." Marshall McLuhan not only made a fortune with it, but established himself as a prophet and philosopher. When McLuhan says the printed word is doomed in our time of electronic communication, everyone listens. Somehow, no one seems to notice that McLuhan's own predictions are presented via the printed word and -- by his own theories -- are doomed from the start.

Oy, could we tear into that one if it wasn't so late. Let's see: Dean Koontz, Marshall McLuhan, Dean Koontz, Marshall McLuhan... I give up, I can't decide who has had more impact on, you know, the world. Anyway, it's 129 pages of dialogue-heavy woodchopping, about which Koontz proclaims, "I have tried to shape a society that has advanced along the lines of the predictions in The Medium Is the Massage... and then advanced a little farther -- a little too far." Cue the sinister laugh already.

I've read McLuhan's best-selling picture book, and it's pretty much "Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan, for Dummies." McLuhan's bigger book, admittedly no light reading, was probably too dense for dizzy Dean to squeeze a bargain-basement dystopia from, which presumes he had a look at it in the first place. Actually, there's no indication that the Dean had any direct contact with the short book, either. His understanding of it seems gleaned from a Newsweek blurb.

What say we flip the Ace Double over for something a little less full of itself?

That's more like it.

Oh Darlene

2009-04-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

This is about as non-sequitur as it was possible to be, in June of 1966. In 2009, incoherence of thought has progressed remarkably. Still, tunnels!

Don't be a fool, stay in school. Because reading is FUN-damental. So, you know, books, check 'em out.

Anyway, who says there aren't good jobs to be had during our fun recession?

Rasslin'!

2009-04-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

"Mike Lacklaw" I get, but I'm not exactly sure about "Professor Butch." Amazing what you find around the house during spring cleaning. Why is there a cop with X-ray eyes watching this suggestive grappling?

These men are enjoying this entirely too much. Don't let the National Organization for Marriage get wind of this.

A Boy and His Lynx

2009-04-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

Actual item from my childhood library. Acquired around the age of 11. Early entry in what would prove to be a long-standing tradition of buying books that I will eventually get around to reading.

Eisenhower Dad and Lad Fantasy

2009-04-12T07:42:00.000-07:00

Ex-in-law nightmare for me.

La vie bohemienne

2009-04-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

Artists are always letting this kind of thing happen.

Louis B. Seltzer Boy

2009-04-11T08:07:00.001-07:00

This is significant only to Clevelanders of a certain age. Manry was a copy editor at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, not Seltzer's Cleveland Press, but I needed a 1960s-era Cleveland newspaper pun for the headline. You can still see the little skiff in Cleveland's Western Reserve Historical Society.

Pertinent Question

2009-04-11T05:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know, what do they think could happen?

Flaming Starmen

2009-04-01T21:33:00.000-07:00

Another double but without the charm of a two-sided book. Peril of the Starmen comes up the loser in this cheap gambit from Belmont Paperbacks, starting on page 101 without a title page of its own.

This is hackery at its finest. The Flame of Iridar concludeth thusly: "It was this same Thar, Son of Chandar (you may remember), who was many years later to go forth on the famous Quest of the Sword of Psamathis, where he discovered the age-old terror... But that's another story! THE END."

Over at Peril of the Starmen, it's not much better, but at least there's a guy with an actual name such as you might encounter in real life, if you lived in the 1960s: "And Herb felt free. For the first time in his life. Here on Earth... It was a wonderful feeling. THE END."

There you have it. Roll the credits, Jimbo, and pass me a Guinness.

Bloch Party

2009-04-01T21:27:00.001-07:00

I tried to peel those discount stickers off but they were on with a vengeance. Anyway, they're not without a certain charm. The back of Horror-7 has a thrift store sticker partially obscuring the information that "Robert Bloch is one of the last of the old Lovecraft circle still writing."

Verb Tense

2009-03-30T03:57:00.000-07:00

Shouldn't that read "Draw the Curtain Closed?" Or just "Draw the Curtain." You don't need the "close," it's implied in "draw." Apparently someone thought the title had a better rhythm this way, but it's redundant and probably wrong. The guys who bought this cared a whole lot about grammar, I'm sure.

Anyway, he's dressed, she's completely naked, there's a Luger on the bed, his hand's in his front pocket, what's going on here. My guess is that his gun was too quick.

An Armful of Cheating Woman

2009-03-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

You can't improve on perfection.

Flaming Story

2009-03-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

No relation to Smokey Stover, is my guess.

"A vivid and angry novel that exposes the corruption and decadence," blah blah blah. Whatever Signet needed to do to create the impression that this really isn't a dirty book. Those GI's in the upper right corner aren't fooled for a minute.

How Bad Was She?

2009-03-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

A suspense thriller. Why of course. This is a fine illustration. Well-executed, composed, good use of chiarascuro. Also, she's pretty much naked, the dress being mostly a suggestion for the sake of decorum.
Okay, it appears we're edging into areas of questionable taste, according to the synopsis. Also, why is the young man named after a sandwich?

Tap Pants Confidential

2009-03-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

With, no doubt, many more big printings to follow.

An Innocent Time

2009-03-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

You couldn't make this up if you tried.

Salaciousness Overload

2009-03-29T08:05:00.001-07:00

After so many tawdry scenarios delineated on the covers of aging drugstore softcore, it's a pleasure to visit the clean, crisp, white-cotton world of the Studio Nurse, which I'm sure is completely realistic in its depiction of the exciting milieu inside a bustling Hollywood studio.

Producer Mike Lancaster! Producer Mike Lancaster's ulcer! Handsome Mace Hunter, test pilot! Naval Lieutenant Dirk Patou! And at the center of this swirl of manly men, Golden-Haired Lori Todd!

Temperamental Artists

2009-03-06T06:26:00.000-08:00

Back to Our Roots

2009-03-05T20:40:00.000-08:00

Space spheres and violent volcanoes, what more could a boy growing up in the suburbs in the 1960s want?

Ace Double, Natch

2009-03-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

A popular style from the sixties, two books bound together in a single edition that met in the middle. You had to flip it over to read the other one.

If worship provided more opportunities to include sexy topless blondes in the liturgy, religion might not be so boring.

Kelly Freas

2009-03-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

Died 2005, considered a great science fiction illustrator, though I have to wonder just what it was he was thinking with this strange concoction of lurking Grays, a Christmas-y farmhouse in the snow and a clearly demented biker guy giving the whole scene the hairy eyeball.

Let Everybody Sing

2009-02-26T14:12:00.000-08:00

Because it's what everybody wants to do.

Kismet, Baby

2009-02-22T07:58:00.000-08:00

Did I find this, or did this find me? From Unique Outlet thrift store on West 130th St. in Parma Hts. It appears this is only rarely encountered.

Hula hottie also posted because why not.

Romans de Gare

2009-02-10T04:09:00.001-08:00

That's quite a flair Donald E. Green has for cover illustrations. A situation we can all relate to. How was he to know she had a lightning fetish?

A "French novel." Ahem. A "French novel." The sort where a woman's breasts are about to pop into view any moment now. How many sots in station bars tried to lift the corners of her too-small bolero jacket?

An early close encounter of the third kind. Earthy peasant drab finds herself in a sexy calves-exposing do-si-do with a zero-G spaceman from the Planet Super Mario.

For these and countless other cranked-out delights, we the railroad-riding businessmen of the 1950s and '60s salute you, Emile Zola.

A Book of Proven Merit

2009-02-09T06:41:00.000-08:00

Business is business.

Men Slugging Men

2009-02-09T06:39:00.001-08:00

It's the manly thing to do.

As Low As It Gets

2009-02-09T03:46:00.001-08:00

This is not what Ernie K-Doe had in mind. Hubby looks generally pleased at this turn of events.

Deadly Weapons

2009-02-09T03:42:00.001-08:00

It's always a good thing to cooperate with the FBI, especially when you're stuffing the paperback shelves at drug stores with salacious teen crime porn. Ladies' wardrobes inspired by J. Edgar Hoover.

The Ur-Classic

2009-02-09T03:39:00.001-08:00

Dames and 38s.

On the Farm or In the Boardroom...

2009-02-09T03:37:00.001-08:00

...it's always a good time to Cozy Up with Kozy Books.

Fast-Paced

2009-02-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

It's All Her Fault

2009-02-07T20:15:00.001-08:00

Of course it is.

Highbrow

2009-02-07T20:12:00.000-08:00

Headless tuxedos.

Death Fritters

2009-02-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

Duking It Out

2009-01-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

...in space.

Not the Best Ratio

2009-01-24T08:03:00.001-08:00

Ah, Literature

2009-01-11T06:57:00.001-08:00

Gams in Distress

2009-01-11T06:54:00.001-08:00

Two covers, one book.

Victims Never Talk

2009-01-11T06:53:00.000-08:00

Scarier Than Nixon

2009-01-11T06:26:00.000-08:00

Even Scarier

2009-01-11T06:17:00.000-08:00

Science Conquers All

2008-12-30T07:11:00.001-08:00

Wayback

2008-12-09T05:22:00.000-08:00

Other Odd Persons

2008-12-09T05:21:00.000-08:00

Yet More Eyeballs

2008-12-09T05:19:00.000-08:00

Instant Clone

2008-12-07T09:50:00.000-08:00

Drippy

2008-12-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

Mantis Odalisque

2008-12-07T09:47:00.000-08:00

Quiet for Reading

2008-12-07T09:46:00.000-08:00

Highly Recommended

2008-12-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

Deadlines for Today

2008-12-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

Hair-Raising, Spine-Tingling

2008-12-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

Hungry?

2008-12-07T07:52:00.000-08:00

Crawling

2008-12-07T07:50:00.000-08:00

Dr Glover Recommends

2008-12-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

Eponymous

2008-12-07T07:28:00.000-08:00